Note from Cassandra: I’m over on Laura’s blog today but she has come to visit us here in the realm to tell us about her writing schedule. Thanks Laura for being here today. After you check out her post here, hop on over to Laura’s blog to check out my post for today.

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Gosh, I’m so excited to be a part of Cassandra’s blog tour. What an exciting month, right? Cheers, Cassandra, for all the hard work you’ve put into organizing this international writer fest!

I’ve been asked countless times about how I squeeze writing into my schedule. I’m going to preface this with a disclaimer. You see, I think my answer is a non-answer, but it’s the reality. Okay, drum roll, please!

I don’t schedule writing time. Nope. I don’t.

Why? Because if I did, I’d feel pressure to write, no matter the quality or topic. For me, pressure creates angst and frustration. Angst and frustration actually makes me freeze up. I get too caught up in things like: What should I write about? What if it sucks? What if I can’t find the right words? What if it doesn’t turn out the way I want it?

Notice most of those questions have a negative connotation. SO not cool. Once the negativity wheel starts spinning, I dig myself deeper and deeper into a rut and my writing stagnates like a 1000 year old bog. Stinky. Yuck.

So I don’t even go there.

Sure, I still have goals and I still work really hard to obtain them. For the most part, I do get some writing in every day, but I don’t go all ballistic and start berating myself if I don’t. I trust myself and my brain that the right words will come out if I let them come at their own pace.

Yes, it’s true that I will go days, sometimes weeks, without writing. And that’s okay. Because my brain is still processing things even if I’m not actively thinking about it. I can tell because when I DO sit down to write, the magic happens. An idea strikes. A dialogue snafu gets smoothed. A plot hole gets filled in.

It all works out.

That being said, everybody develops their own strategy to apply to their writerly life and I’d LOVE to hear your routine for writing!

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Laura is a board certified psychiatrist and hopes to become a published author. She writes adult and young adult urban fantasy, fantasy, and dystopian fiction. Her blog: Diamond, Yup, Like the Stone http://lbdiamond.wordpress.com/.

Okay – just letting everyone know that I am going on holidays. Real holiday, not just being denied access from the computer for a week. I’ll be gone for just under two weeks and during that time I’ve scheduled a series of posts that were originally posted onto my blog on blogger – Darkened Jade.

Wishing everyone the best over the next two weeks with their writing and hopefully I’ll be dropping in to check on how everyone is going.

As I’m flying off to Paris let’s just hope that the airports stay open and hopefully I will have some great stories to share when I get back. And if you happen to be in Paris and see a crazy red head completely lost, be nice and point her in the right direction.